The Popular Kids
by nancy fan
Summary: When Quinn Fabray is brutally murdered, the police mount an investigation and quickly discover that there is more than one McKinley High student who would like to see her dead.
1. Chapter 1

**This prologue is set in the days preceding the pilot episode of Glee. **

**I hope everyone enjoys:) **

The wind whipping her golden-blonde hair furiously around her face, Quinn raced desperately along the dimly lit street. The night sky was inky-black, the stars and moon obliterated by the stormy clouds overhead and the surrounding darkness was almost suffocating. No lights glowed in the windows of the magnificent houses that lined the street, their occupants long tucked up in their beds. Quinn screamed and roared but nobody came to her aid, the sound of her voice lost under the furious screech of the wind.

The steady patter of footsteps behind her echoed ominously in the air and Quinn's heart practically exploded out of her chest with terror.

_She wasn't going to make it,_ Quinn suddenly knew, her breath coming out in low, shallow rasps and burning her lungs. Panic threatening to overcome her, Quinn redoubled her efforts, her long, bare legs splattered with mud as she rounded the final corner.

This was the street she'd known all her life. The place where she'd played jump rope with her sister as a child; their happy cries filling the air as the thick rope slapped off the warm asphalt. The place where she'd shared her first kiss with Finn Hudson, her lips on his sticky with cherry lipgloss and his hands sweaty against her back. _This was her home._ The one place where she was meant to feel safe, where nothing bad could ever possibly happen. _Not anymore._ The graceful trees lining the street now took on a more ominous presence, their branches threatening to reach out and swallow her whole. Shadows loomed from every corner and promised to harbor something even more evil than the person who even now, Quinn was certain was gaining ground behind her.

Sometimes, shivering in her skimpy Cheerio uniform on the playing field, Quinn inwardly cursed Ms. Sylvester, wishing she could be anywhere but there. Now, she was grateful. Being head cheerleader of the Cheerios, ensured Quinn was strong and fit, her lean body carefully honed through hours of turning cartwheels and flying into somersaults in the air. Quinn had no baseball bat, no gun, no knife, nothing she could use to fend off her assailant. Her body would be the only weapon she could use if she was to save herself.

Stepping down off yet another curb, Quinn cried out in frustration as she momentarily lost her footing and fell down heavily onto the ground.

"God." she groaned, her knee aching in protest as she forced herself to get to her feet, not even seeing the bright trail of red that snaked down her leg.

"Come back here, Quinn. I just want to talk to you." the voice called menacingly from behind her, causing Quinn to quicken her pace, her eyes desperately scanning the darkness for an escape. Icy water seeped into her sneakers as she stepped into yet another puddle and her Cheerio's uniform clung miserably to her skin but Quinn hardly noticed.

_She was almost there._

The sprawling mansion loomed into sight and racing up the driveway, Quinn banged desperately at the door.

"Mom, open the door." she pleaded, her knuckles reduced to a bloody mess as she pounded frantically on the door.

"Mom." she screamed again, tears stinging at her eyes and nausea starting to pool in her stomach. "Help me, please. He's going to kill me."

A resounding bang and an explosion of pain was the last thing Quinn felt before she sank into darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

**I just want to say a big thank you for all the kind words people left on the first chapter:) **

**Here's the second chapter. Enjoy:)**

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* * *

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A black veil angled carefully over her face, one perfect tear glistened in Rachel's eyes as she stood somber-faced at the graveside. Rachel had never been to a funeral before and she was determined to use this experience to her advantage. Method acting, Natalie Portman had called it. McKinley High was staging Les Miserables in the spring and the part of Eponine, the part Rachel was absolutely determined to get, demanded the kind of emotional performance that required looking at the most heart-wrenching scenes from both Titanic and The Notebook as a psychological warm-up.

Having held the dual accolade of being both head cheerleader and most popular girl at school, Quinn Fabray's funeral was predictably packed. McKinley High students stood in tight little huddles around the graveside, their red-rimmed eyes and tear stained cheeks speaking of their absolute devastation as they clung to one another for support. Rachel, though stood alone, friendship being the one skill she had never quite mastered.

"I just can't believe this has happened."

It took Rachel a moment to comprehend that someone was speaking to her. Nobody ever initiated conversation with Rachel Berry. In class, she sat alone and silent, while all around the other students laughed and joked, indulging in the latest, juiciest gossip of the day. Not that she was surprised; being the most vocally proficient student in McKinley High carried it's own burden and Rachel understood that most people were quite rightly, fiercely intimidated by her incredible talent.

Raising her brown eyes curiously, Rachel was surprised to see herself staring into Finn Hudson's handsome face.

"I'm so sorry," Rachel began nervously, knowing the words were meaningless and hollow but not sure exactly what else to say. It wasn't as if she could chime in with some well intentioned story of a fond memory she had shared with Quinn Fabray because there were none. Quinn had tormented Rachel under her reign as queen of McKinley High and reflecting on that, Rachel wasn't quite sure why she had attended the memorial service in the first place.

Finn shrugged as though he hadn't even heard her, her words not even registering in his brain. Fixing Rachel with one last searching look, Finn edged his way through the crowds of people that were milling around, a friend occasionally stopping to draw him into a hug.

Left alone with her thoughts, Rachel's attention returned to the solitary figure of Quinn's mother sitting frozen at her daughter's grave. Her face expressionless, she barely reacted when people came over to offer their words of condolences, the hand they extended awkward and uncertain. Mr. Fabray's face was arranged in a similar display of shock and horror, his arm wrapped around his eldest daughter's shoulders, who was crying uncontrollably, her entire body wracked in heaving, miserable sobs.

Despite everything Quinn had put her through, the name calling, the snide insults and the slushie facials, she didn't deserve this. Nobody did. There had been horrific whispers circulating in the hallways that Quinn had been bludgeoned to death with a hammer, rendering the driveway of the Fabray household a veritable bloodbath.

* * *

Standing at a distance from the graveside, Detective John Andrews eyed the unfolding scene curiously. The crowd attending the memorial service merged into a single wall of black but Detective Andrews could see the Fabray family clearly, the trio sitting in a miserable huddle by their daughter's coffin. The family looked devastated, the blonde, young woman who was evidently Quinn's sister enfolded in her father's arms and wailing miserably. But then, tears were easy to fake and John wasn't so easily taken in by an outward display of emotion, however convincing it might seem. Twenty years of working as a hardened detective had taught him the cunning ways of people who had something to hide.

"What do you think?" the detective asked, turning to his partner curiously.

Running a hand frustratedly through her pale-blonde curls, Detective Anne Brown sighed heavily as she regarded the grieving family. "John, that family have just lost their daughter. Their lives are never going to be the same again. So what I think is we should give them time to grieve before we start probing into every dark corner of their lives. Interviewing the family can wait until tomorrow."

"I guess you're right." Detective Andrews agreed gruffly, his steel grey eyes scanning the crowd for a final time before he walked reluctantly away.

* * *

Finn's hand was starting to ache from the steady stream of mourners who came up to offer their condolences. The faces were all starting to merge into one. The same plate of untouched chicken salad remained in his hand but Finn couldn't bring himself to eat it. His stomach turned as he remembered Quinn's lifeless body lying sprawled out on the ground, her golden blonde hair sticky with blood. It was an image Finn couldn't get out of his mind, no matter how hard he tried and the dozens of framed photographs of Quinn that smiled down from the walls weren't helping.

The house was crowded, the air sticky and warm and Finn threw off his jacket and wandered out into the garden. Outside, the night was still and calm and relishing the feel of the cool air on his skin, Finn wandered over to join Puck, who was hunched over miserably on the garden wall.

"This sucks," Puck muttered dismally, taking an angry swig from the bottle of beer clutched in his hands. "If I could get my hands on the guy who did this..."

Puck's words trailed away menacingly and Finn could see the venom in his eyes.

"You saw her, right?"

Seeing Finn nod slowly in answer, Puck continued hesitantly. "You don't think she suffered, do you?"

There was no easy way to answer that question. The doctors who'd attended the scene had all been quick to assure the Fabrays that no, Quinn didn't suffer and that she had died instantly after the first blow. The anguished expression that had been frozen on Quinn's face and the wild splatters of red that had daubed the wall had suggested otherwise though.

"She didn't suffer," Finn agreed and the tense muscles in Puck's face softened a little.

The pair sat in comfortable silence after that, Puck's taking intermittent swigs from his bottle of beer before passing it over to Finn.

"You know, you can come to me if you want to talk, right?" Puck offered quietly, the pair staring into the darkness.

"I know," Finn replied, draining the bottle of beer before heading back inside the house to meet another wave of shocked and dazed faces.

* * *

School was generally a hellish experience for Rachel. She was taunted, laughed at, jeered. Her books could end in the garbage, gym clothes flushed down the toilet. In life, Quinn had made Rachel's existence an utter hell but ironically, the shock that was circulating throughout the school caused by the head cheerleader's death had offered Rachel somewhat of a temporary reprieve. Students that would normally occupy themselves with terrorizing Rachel, were now too wrapped up in every minute detail of Quinn's shocking murder, to care that Rachel had received a complementary comment from Mrs. Jacobs on the supposedly enlightening paper she had written about irony in the works of Shakespeare or that she had uploaded a video of herself singing her favorite song from the musical Wicked onto her myspace page.

Walking down the hallway, the usual defiant expression on her face, Rachel's curiosity was piqued by a sign pinned up on the notice board.

**Sign ups for Glee Club.**

Considering the abysmal lack of talent in McKinley High, Rachel felt it was her duty to offer her services to the Glee club and only hesitated for a second, before scrawling her signature on the page.

"What's with the star?"

Gazing behind her, Rachel braced herself for ridicule but the smile that met her was warm and genuine.

"Hi, I'm Tina," she introduced herself, a slight stutter in her voice and Rachel found herself smiling uncertainly back. "See you at rehearsal," the girl shyly smiled, printing her name neatly on the sheet before shuffling meekly into her class.

* * *

The coffee at the police station was notoriously bad but it contained some much needed caffeine so Detective John Andrews reluctantly poured himself a cup. Taking a sip from the steaming liquid, he was about to grab himself a quick sandwich, when the buzz from his cell phone forced him to return to his desk.

"Detective Andrews." he answered gruffly, placing the cellphone to his ear and throwing himself into his chair.

"Hello, Detective." a voice greeted him curtly and Detective Andrews recognized it immediately as belonging to the coroner who had performed the autopsy on Quinn Fabray.

"Hello, Dr. James. What have you got for me?" the detective drawled lazily, taking a grateful sip from his cup of coffee.

"As suspected, the victim's injuries were caused by blunt force trauma to the head by a framing hammer. Her skull shattered at the point of injury causing immediate death. There's something else, though," the woman continued and there was something in her voice that caused Andrews to sit up little straighter in his chair.

"The victim was approximately eight weeks pregnant." she offered, giving the detective a moment to allow the information to sink in.

"Quinn Fabray was pregnant?" the man repeated disbelievingly. "When I interviewed her parents this evening, they never mentioned that,"

"They probably didn't know," the woman offered sadly, informing the detective that she would have the autopsy report sent over to him first thing in the morning before hanging up.


	3. Chapter 3

The Fabray home was an immaculate white-painted house, that featured pink roses curling in a delicate arch around the front door. Brightly colored flowers bloomed in the garden and carefully positioned flagstones snaked in a path to the summer house at the back of the property, where presumably Quinn had played as a child. Everything looked so sunny and bright that it was almost impossible to believe that just a few short days ago, the driveway had been the scene of such unspeakable violence. Blood had been splattered wildly on the walls and the miserable red trailed down the driveway, the rain washing the carnage into the puddles and drains.

"Detectives," Judy Fabray welcomed the pair with a weary shrug, opening the door wide and ushering them into the living room. The woman looked like hell; her platinum blonde hair unwashed and tangled and tied up in a hasty bun. Dark shadows were smudged under her eyes and her face was swollen with crying. "I'm sorry that my husband isn't here to speak with you. He's out with my daughter taking a break. Can I offer you something to drink?"

The detectives tactfully declining her offer, they took a seat on the pink-striped love seat, gesturing at the woman to take a seat opposite them.

"How did you sleep?" Detective Brown asked kindly, reaching out and placing a hand consolingly on the older woman's shoulder.

Not trusting herself to speak, Judy simply shook her head miserably in reply. She didn't sleep, was her answer. She hadn't for days, her mind haunted by the images of her daughter's bloodied, broken body the second she closed her eyes.

"Mrs. Fabray, I know this is hard but we need to know everything about your daughter, if we have any hope of putting her murderer behind bars. Do you understand?"

Judy nodded tightly in answer, her arms wrapped protectively around her narrow frame as she waited for the detectives to continue.

"Did Quinn have a boyfriend?" Detective Anne Brown began delicately, sitting rigid and tense in her chair. Ten years of working as a detective and dealing with the most brutal and shocking of cases, never prepared her for meetings like these.

"She did," Judy Fabray confirmed shakily, pressing a crumpled tissue to her eyes. "A wonderful boy, Finn Hudson." she finished, before aiming a suspicious look at the detectives. "You don't think he's mixed up in all this, do you? Because he's a wonderful boy, simply wonderful. Russell and myself couldn't have chosen a nicer boy to date our daughter. He treated Quinny with so much respect," her voice trailed away then and detective could tell she was getting lost in her thoughts.

"Mrs. Fabray, Quinn was almost two months pregnant when she died,"

Detective Brown hated being so blunt but really, was there ever a kind way to deliver such shocking news? Better to be direct and honest, than coat the truth in well meaning lies.

"But that's impossible," Judy Fabray replied, her voice barely a whisper. "We raised Quinn to be good and honest girl."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Fabray. I don't doubt that you raised Quinn to be the wonderful girl that everyone speaks so highly of, but the fact remains that she was most definitely pregnant when she died. Do you have any idea who the father was?"

"Quinn, pregnant?" the woman echoed dully, struggling to make sense of the detective's words. "I don't believe this. Quinn was only a baby, herself."

"Have you any idea who the father could be?" Detective Brown repeated forcibly, sensing the importance of this latest break in the case.

"As I've already said, Quinn was dating Finn Hudson but I can hardly believe that he was responsible for this. Finn always seemed like such a good, sensible boy."

The night was inky black as the detectives walked to their car, the air bitterly cold.

"What do you think?" Detective Andrews asked solemnly, opening the car door and sliding inside.

"We need to speak to this Finn Hudson first thing tomorrow," Detective Brown replied in a matter-of-fact tone, rubbing her gloved hands together vigorously as she waited for the heating to kick in. "Star quarterback and destined for a football scholarship, he probably wouldn't have been too happy to learn that his cheerleader girlfriend was pregnant."

"They never are." Detective Andrews agreed grimly, putting the car into reverse and pulling carefully out onto the road.

* * *

"Quinn was pregnant?"

Sitting in Figgins office, the cramped space currently masquerading as a temporary interview room for the two detectives standing in front of him, Finn felt the blood draining from his cheeks.

"That's right, son," the detective replied in a gentle tone that seemed so at odds with the his tough, craggy exterior he exhumed.. "Ms. Fabray was almost two months pregnant when she died.,"

Taking a long drink from his container of coffee, the detective sat back in his chair, his expression expectant as he waited patiently for Finn to continue.

"But, that's impossible," Finn stuttered, white-faced, trying desperately to make some sort of sense from out of the detective's words.

"You mean Ms. Fabray never told you she was pregnant?" the female detective cut in softly. Gazing at her, Finn couldn't help but be struck by the fact that her hair was the same pale golden color as Quinn's.

"No, I mean we never had sex," Finn shrugged, his face reddening as he regarded the detectives sheepishly. "I mean, I wanted to and all," he continued, feeling as though his very masculinity was being brought in question by the fact that the star quarter back hadn't managed to get score with his head cheerleader girlfriend. It was almost a cliché, for Christ's sake. "But Quinn was very religious and believed in waiting until she was married to have sex. So as you can see, Detectives, there's absolutely no way Quinn could have been pregnant." he finished with a weary shrug, his exhaustion evident on his face.

_The sun searing down from an impossibly blue sky, Quinn and Finn lay sprawled out on the cool of the grass, his hand resting lightly on her bare thigh. _

_God, Quinn Fabray was hot. _

_A tiny bikini exposing acres miles of skin and her body tanned and lean, the cheerleader was without doubt, the hottest girl in school and it was taking serious control on Finn's part not to imagine her naked. _

_Crap, Quinn had just said something, Finn realized belatedly, rummaging desperately in his brain for the most likely thing his girlfriend would have said. _

"_Santana's dress was really cute today," he tried in utter desperation, knowing immediately by the confused look on Quinn's face that he had guessed wrong. _

"_What the hell are you on about, Finn?" Quinn teased lightly, pulling him closer to her and pressing her lips to his. "I was just saying that we should totally go to Luigi's for our six-month anniversary. The food is supposed to be totally out of his world."_

_The press of her body against his was electric. Feeling Quinn's tongue moving delicately into against his mouth, Finn couldn't stop his hand trailing down towards her bikini bottoms, his fingers entangled teasingly in the purple tie. _

_Pulling hastily away, Quinn regarded shot Finn with a look of utter shock. "What the hell do you think you are doing?" she demanded angrily, pulling out of his embrace and pushing herself shakily to her feet. "You know about my views on sex before marriage and you try this?"_

_Quinn's cool green eyes were flashing with anger. _

"_I'm sorry, Quinn," Finn pleaded shamefaced, willing his now very obvious erection to disappear. Quinn kept darting looks at it in horror and disgust as though he was some kind of serial killer slash sexual deviant. "I didn't mean it. It's just you're so beautiful," he shrugged, lowering his brown eyes to the ground. The utter revulsion on her face was almost impossible to bear. _

"_It's too late for that, Finn," Quinn muttered tearfully, grabbing her bag. and Finn could swear he could hear his girlfriend whispering the words of the Hail Mary under her breath as she stormed inside the house._

The sound of the detective's voice pulled Finn out of his reverie.

"I'm sorry son, but autopsies don't lie. Quinn Fabray was most definitely pregnant when she died."

The man's expression was apologetic, sympathetic even and somehow that made things the whole thing worse.

Finn couldn't bear to hear anymore.

Pulling the chair back from the desk, the legs scraping nosily on the floor, Finn stood up and stalked out angrily of the room.

* * *

A bottle of beer clutched in his hands, Finn took a long, angry swig before lashing out with his fist at the wall. The punch was brutal and the stone wall sliced open his skin, causing blood to seep drip freely down Finn's fingers and onto the ground.

"How the hell could she have done this to me?" he demanded outraged, taking a swing at the wall again, forcing Puck to intervene and pull his friend forcefully back before he do any more damage.

"You hit that wall again and you're going to fuck up your hand," Puck muttered in exasperation, grabbing another beer, the bottle opening with an angry hiss. "Is that what you want?"

Puck's brown eyes widened in shock as Finn picked up a bottle and flung it against the wall. It shattered in a magnificent explosion of glass and amber beer frothed all over the grass.

"What the hell, Man?" Puck spluttered in shock, completely unaccustomed to displays of anger by from Finn, who was generally a pretty easygoing guy. "Maybe drinking is not the best thing for you to be doing, right now."

"Believe me, drinking is the only thing right now that is keeping me from going absolutely freaking insane." Finn muttered angrily through clenched teeth, his jaw tightly set. "You won't believe what those cops told me today." he continued, his words falling over one another, such was his haste to get them out.

"What?" Puck demanded impatiently, taking a swig of his beer.

An angry cry emanating from his throat, Finn swallowed hard before answering. "Quinn was pregnant when she died," he shrugged in angry resignation. "I mean can you believe that? Like a fool, I was putting up with her holier than thou bullshit and all along she was putting out for some other guy. It's unbelievable."

Taking a desperate swig from his beer, Finn sat down wearily on the wall, staring into the night.

"Are you sure?"

Finn might have only imagined it but he was certain he had heard a nervous edge to Puck's voice.

"Definitely," Finn confirmed with a sad shake of his head, the anger that had consumed him starting to slowly ebb. "She was almost two months pregnant, the cops said."

"It's messed-up, Man." Puck agreed, reaching for the stronger liquor this time, his eyes watering in protest as the cheap whiskey burning down his throat.

* * *

_This just simply would not do_, Rachel sighed inwardly, as she surveyed the dismal line up of her presumably future back-up singers.

Rachel had spent days preparing for her audition for glee club. She'd enlisted the services of Lima's most sought after dance teacher, Brian Friedman to choreograph an intricate series of movements to accompany her rendition of And All That Jazz. And she had watched Chicago innumerable times to mimic the exact expression Catherine Zeta Jones wore on her face when she killed the final note. Now glancing around at the pitiful few students who had turned up to audition, Rachel was disappointed to see that not everyone had put in the same amount of effort as her. Not that that surprised her; Rachel being regularly disappointed by her peers.

_Mercedes Jones could can sing well enough_, Rachel considered charitably, seeing the girl belt out a Whitney Houston song on the stage. _But the extra weight the girl was carrying was troubling._

Costumes demanded uniformity and Mercedes had to be at least five sizes bigger than the rest of the girls. Boasting an ever perfect size-six two figure, Rachel considered herself something of a guru when it came to dieting and now Mercedes Jones would have the privilege of being allowed to share in that expertise.

"Hello Mercedes," Rachel smiled tightly, ushering to the girl to sit next to her after she stepped down from the stage. "I'm Rachel Berry," she introduced herself, extending her hand. which Mercedes accepted shook it uncertainly.

"You have such a beautiful voice," Rachel gushed openly, though inwardly she thought Mercedes could use a little help with her upper range. Not that she'd tell Mercedes that. Well at least, not today anyway. Criticism had to be deployed carefully; Dr. Phil had taught her that, every caustic word sandwiched between at least two more charitable ones.

"Thank you," Mercedes beamed at her words, "You know, you're not so bad yourself,"

Though she bristled at the implication behind the other girl's words, Rachel forced a patient smile onto her face. Mercedes, after all, hadn't been told by Simon Cowell himself that she had the voice of an angel or had been practically promised Indina Menzel's role of Elphaba the second she graduated from Juilliard.

"Mercedes, this is kind of a delicate matter," Rachel began tentatively, her long tanned legs crossed primly. "But I'm just wondering what eating program you're currently following,"

"Eating program?" Mercedes echoed uncertainly, throwing longing glances over at Tina and Kurt who were indulging in a thoroughly scandalous conversation about Cheryl Cole's suspected nose job.

"Well, I'm on the Zone," Rachel explained with an indulgent smile. "And I know Santana Lopez is on The Baby Food diet from all those tiny containers of food she carries around."

"You mean like a diet?" Mercedes demanded warily, not liking at all where this conversation was going.

"The word diet has so many negative connotations," Rachel thrilled lightly, running her fingers through her glossy hair. "An eating program is more about controlling what you eat, but in a positive way." she reiterated, flashing a dazzling smile at Mercedes. "You know, I really think you could benefit from a stint on The Raw Food diet. Mandy Moore lost six pounds during her first week alone."

Things had gone admittedly downhill after that. Mercedes had declared her body to be a voluptuous paradise before storming out of the auditorium, Kurt following shortly in her wake.


End file.
